CineLink to widen net and introduce awards

Sarajevo Film Festival's CineMart-style co-production market CineLink is to widen its catchment area to include the entire South-East European region and will award Euros 25,000 each to two of the CineLink projects.

The first edition of CineLink last August was open for projects from Bosnia & Herzegovina, Croatia and Serbia & Montenegro, but the 2004 event will also be open to filmmakers from Albania, Bulgaria, Macedonia, Romania and Slovenia.

A 15 February deadline has been set for feature film projects to be submitted for consideration, and a regional pre-selection jury will then chose a number of projects to participate in the CineLink's script development programme. This consists of two separate, one-week long sessions with an intervening period of one month for script re-writes.

After this phase, a main international jury will select five to six projects to be pitched at the three-day CineLink event during the 10th Sarajevo Film Festival at the end of August.

Moreover, as an innovation next year, the festival organisers and the CineLink advisory board will decide after the market on awarding two of the CineLink projects closest to realisation with cash prizes of Euros 25,000 towards their production. The main criteria for receiving the award will be the possibility of a film being made before July 2005 and the chance of having a premiere at the 11th Sarajevo Film Festival.

The CineLink market was instigated by the Sarajevo Film Festival in cooperation with the Rotterdam International Film Festival's Hubert Bals Fund "to develop an instrument to bring producers, financiers, and filmmakers from South-East Europe together".

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